When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon forty years ago the otherwise admirable British magazine New Scientist was, as they put it, “a tad curmudgeonly” when writing of the event, saying, “it is really a matter of no greater moment than just peering into the high recesses of a trapeze act” and “We believed the hype about the technological age that we thought we lived in. Moon shot? Easy.”
But now, looking back at the pitifully rudimentary technology that was all the Apollo people had to work with (cork for insulation, emergency exit by sliding down a rope, a mere 64K of computer memory, etc.), they’ve changed their mind about the “astonishing splendour” of this “remarkable demonstration of human ingenuity.”
So we accept your apology, Britain. Now will you accept ours for the uncalled-for rudeness of 1776?
Tony Earnshaw says:
I was a schoolboy in England at the time of the Apollo landings. How well I remember the derision that we hurled at New Scientist when we read its curmudgeonly editorial! I recall, too, Frederik’s excellent rebuff that the magazine printed in its letters page shortly afterwards (”Really, New Scientist!”) - even then, Frederik’s prose was leaving its mark on my memory.
August 20, 2009, 12:28 am